Smart phone or stupid phone?

I'm guessing a regular phone must be called a stupid phone, since it's not a "smart" one. 

It never fails with my husband, when we're about 6 months away from being eligible for upgrades he starts talking about the newest, coolest phone. He researches and searches and researches, he asks around, he looks up reviews. Of course he's been all about the iphone, but I've also caught him looking at htc desire reviews, and other droids.. .

We always have the same discussion, I don't really see the point in a smart phone. Not because I don't think it would be awesome to have one, but because I don't see the point in paying $30 a month on top of the service we already pay. seems a little stupid to me, I mean we pay for internet at home, and we pay for a cell phone bill, why pay a bill so your cell phone can have internet? 

I like to be able to get away from technology, when we go on vacation (especially camping) I shut my phone off completely and leave it in the car, checking it once a day, to make sure no one has tried to call me with an emergency.  There's just something nice about Not being stuck to an electronic device...

Two Months!

I can't believe my baby is two months old already. He's really getting a personality, he's very social and would love it if we just held him and talked to him all day. He smiles and "talks" right back. He had his 2 month check up on Tuesday, he's 11lbs 8oz, almost 24" long. He was right at 50th percentile across the board. I don't think any of my girls were ever like that, something was always way higher, with Lexi it was her head (which stayed near 90th percentile or bigger) with Caylee it was her weight (she hit 20lbs around 6 months and is still only about 24lbs). Now I've got what the dr called a "picture perfect" two month old.

Yes.he is. thanks for noticing. :)

I'm surprised he's not a chubby boy though, honestly. He eats every 2 hours, boy does that boy like food. Maybe my milk is super fat burning foods or something, I don't see how anyone could eat that much and not be big.

Oh well, he's absolutely adorable and I love him .

The Great Outdoors

I really love being outside. I love hiking and camping and exploring. I can't wait until it's warmer and we can get out and enjoy nature!  I'm excited because about a quarter to half a mile from where our new apartment is, is the beginning of a long walking trail that follows a river.  I can't wait to get out there and run on it, or push the stroller, or let the kids ride their bikes, run and explore!

When we lived in Tennessee we weren't too far from the Occoee river, we used to go there almost every weekend when it was warm. We'd hike, or play in the river, or sometimes just sit and watch the people white water rafting. We even camped at one of the campgrounds a few times, it was just a lot of fun!

One thing I know will happen when we have our own land and house is that Eugene will be buying a 4-wheeler, and probably the biggest ATV tires you can find so he can drive it through mud puddles and across rivers and over tree stumps. He always gets jealous when he sees people out riding.  (I'm not going to lie, I like a good atv adventure myself!)

For now though, we'll have to enjoy the warm days at the park or on the walking trail... one day.

Gym membership or the great outdoors?

My husband and I are trying to get in shape and the town we're moving to has a small gym just a few blocks from our apartment. We're considering getting a membership, my husband is a big fan of treadmills, but hates running outside. I would MUCH rather run outside, but with it not staying light for real long it's hard to find time to do that.   It's $21 a month if we both want to use only the cardio room (or only the weight room) but if we'd like to use both cardio and weight room it's $47 a month. We'll probably get a cardio room membership for a few months to try to lose some weight, unless there's some magical mens fat burner out there, or woman's fat burner? One where no exercise or diet is needed.

My first 5K

I'm "training" for a 5K in the end of February. Although I've run a half marathon I've never run a 5K, that's a little backwards to most people I think. I have a friend who wants to run a 5K in 27 minutes, and I'm running with her, so it's our goal to meet that speed.

I ran 3 miles on Saturday (5K is 3.1 miles) I finished in 31 minutes, but I got a horrible side stitch around .75miles and ended up walking for a little bit around 1.5 miles. So all in all my time wasn't bad since I walked, but I've got 4 weeks to take 4 minutes off my time. I'm pretty sure I can do that I guess... I've got to work on distance, speed and get some cross training in too. I'm going to be doing  a lower ab workout too, gotta strengthen that core!!

So hopefully I will be ready to reach that goal time in a few weeks. Seems crazy to me, but possible if I try hard!

Mt. Boxmore

I've managed to pack up just about everything that can be packed up. I have a mountain of boxes, which I've named Mt Boxmore, in the toy room. Electric is on at our new place, scheduled to be turned off here next Monday, Water is taken care off, trash is taken care of, Internet is taken care of. Change of address has been submitted, address has been changed on most bills.... I think we might be ready by Saturday morning.

Tomorrow night I will go up to the apartment to clean it, Saturday after this place is empty I will clean here too... lots of cleaning.

I am shocked things have gone so smoothly with everything, our new landlord seems to be really laid back, and our landlord from here that is being surprisingly easy too, he's returning our deposit even though we're moving out a month  before our year is up. I'm not going to complain though, we need the money to give to our new landlord. 

I am hoping and praying that we like this place and will stay there for awhile... it's only 2 bedroom so I don't know how long we'll fit, but I am SO sick of moving. Normally I like it, I enjoy change, and I get sick of the same furniture placing so moving is fun to me... but this time I am SICK of packing and moving. I want to just pay off our debt, get a down payment saved and move into a house. stick a barcode on the house of my dreams, get out your POS systems and scan it... I'm ready to be done with this packing stuff already!!

packing!!!

Saturday I looked at an apartment my husband looked at during the week. It's about 2 minutes from his work. I was a little unsure, because since the electric was off the owner was unable to do the little things around the apartment that needed done, like paint, and fix up a few things. So to me it looked a little sketchy. It met all our needs though, so I spent the day asking myself if I would like it if it was freshly painted and the few things were fixed. The Landlord seemed really cool, he's going to let us (and even help us) hook up the washer to sink, and install an outlet for us to hook up the dryer. He's also going to let us paint and whatever we put into the apartment he's going to take off our rent.

So Sunday we decided we'd take the place. the catch? we wanted to move out before having to pay our current landlord rent. which means moving THIS saturday. Ok, not a big deal... I can pack the whole house in 5 days.

Monday I woke up sick. I went to the bathroom about 900 times throughout the whole day, I didn't eat anything until about 7 when I tried to eat a handful of french fries (the frozen kind not the fast food kind). I could barely move and pretty much only got out of bed or off the couch to get the girls something (or go to the bathroom).

Ok... packing the whole house in 4 days... doable right?

Tuesday comes. still not feeling great, Josiah had a 2 month appointment at 8:45, which meant bringing Eugene half way to work to meet someone he works with, then going back past the house to the dr's office. Got home about 10:20, dealt with crying whining girls (and a screaming Josiah, who had been fussing since Sunday night, I am guessing he had the stomach bug too).

I finally got some packing done last night, and I managed to get all I could done today (I ran out of boxes). I pretty much just had to ignore my stomach ache. Eugene got more boxes on the way home from work though, which means tonight and tomorrow are full of more packing!

I'm excited to be moving, our livingroom is huge, it makes me want to buy a sectional or theater seating or something big to fill the space. :)  we are going down to two bedrooms, but we will have a big dinning room too, so that excites me. We've never lived in a place that had a spot for our table. 

I'm most excited about having more time with Eugene and saving money on rent, gas, and water.

Energy

I've cut the soda out of my diet, junk had been limited (I had some chocolate this week) and I'm trying so hard to eat a normal healthy portion of the foods that I eat. And as you know, I've started running again, all of which give me more energy. I've also been trying to remember to take my vitamins. 

I just take some generic prenatal vitamins since I'm nursing I still need the extra stuff. I've always just got the cheapest vitamins they have at walmart, I don't know if there's a difference, maybe I should check out prenatalvitamin.org  for a better brand?

Who knows, I've never had any problems so I guess they are ok. Hopefully all these things will help my energy increase, cuz I'm tired of being tired!! 

spring nights

Today I went for a run on the greenway down town. It was cold, and my little 3 mile run was hard. Both my knees are swollen and acting up, and somewhere around 3/4ths of a mile I got a side cramp that I could not shake off. I tried everything I knew to try until I got to 1.5 miles and decided to walk for a minute to try to make it go away. It wouldn't, so I started running again.  When I finally got back to my car and was laying on the ground stretching I was thinking back to last spring.

Running was so much easier then. I'd go down there in the evenings, the light was just perfect between the setting sun and the lighting they have along the path. It was warm, the stars lit up the sky while I'd lay there on the freshly cut green grass and stretch. I could have stayed there forever. Running was so different than it is now.

It's important for me to remind myself that I like running, because right now while I'm struggling to run 3 miles and it's freezing cold and my knees hurt.... I don't want to run! But I am. I will run another half marathon. I will run the 5K next month in the 27 minutes that my friend and I want to run it in. I can do it.

Keeping up

Caylee is my little monkey, she is on everything, into everything, under everything and doing everything. She also whines for hours if you don't let her do what she wants to do. She's hard to keep up with, she's better than thermogenic fat burners.  She still takes naps, so I normally have at least an hour and a half of  "quiet time".

Lexi is miss smarty pants. She's too smart for her own good, and needs to be constantly entertained by electronics. School is going pretty well, She has a hard time concentrating when I have to read her stories and she has to answer questions, which gets quite frustrating.

Josiah is growing like a weed, he's working on outgrowing his 0-3 month clothes already. His two month check up is next week so we'll see how much he weighs and how long he is, I'm guessing he's about 12lbs. he's smiling a bunch too.

loving my new body

I'm trying really hard to love my body. three kids takes a toll on your skin.  I'm having an even harder time with this one since I was in the best shape of my life before getting pregnant. I've been getting back into running, and I have to remind myself I'm starting over not starting where I left off.  I'm sure in no time I'll be able to run faster and longer, and the skin will tighten back up and the fat will come off.

I think it's easier the more kids I have to accept that my body is different, I wonder how many new moms fall into a hoodia scam in an attempt to get that prebaby body back.   Not me... I'll work on getting in shape and until then try to love my new body, stretch marks and all!

not enough

Being a mom to three has been harder than I expected. At first it wasn't bad, but this week I've started having guilt about not having as much time for the kids.I feel like there's not enough of me. I feel bad if I hold Josiah because Caylee's not getting the attention she wants and needs, so I've been putting him down a lot, only holding him when he's fussy or when he wants to eat. but then I feel bad not holding him and giving him the same amount of contact that the girls had. I might not feel so bad when he's a little bigger and is playing with things, right now I feel like he sleeps as soon as I put him down so by putting him down I'm making him sleep. Just feels rude. Then I try to fit in playing with Lexi too, which is a chore all in itself, then there is the rare cases like this where I want to write a blog or do something for myself that I need two hands for. Then I'm not spending time with any of them! 

Caylee has started to act out when I have to stop playing with her or stop holding her to pick up Josiah, the other day she peed on the couch because her and I were playing/snuggling and Josiah started fussing because he needed to eat. When I put her down and took him to change his diaper she immediately peed. Lexi has started copying Caylee's bad behaviors trying to get attention, even if it's negative. it's oh so annoying, but just makes me feel like I'm neglecting them.  I wish I had some Jublo Goggles that could show me just how to balance them, or that would look into the future and show me they will be just fine sharing me!

tv time

How much is your tv on? it seems like ours is only off  when we're all in bed. A lot of the rime the girls aren't sitting watching it, it's just background noise, but the second i turn it off they whine for it to be on. My biggest reason for having it on so much is that the girls cause more trouble and fight more when it's off. Today I managed to give ours a little break, I made them keep it off for a few hours while they played. I think i'll do this each day, adding half an hour to the time it's off each day until we get down to a normal amount of tv. So... how much should your samsung HDTV be on each day anyway? I'm thinking an hour or two is probably more than normal for most houses, but I'd love to get down to that here. After all, there's always music to create background noise!

Moving up!

My husband started a new job right before Christmas. He's already moved up from technician to a position in the web department!! I'm not sure what all he'll be doing but I know it involves graphic design, maybe some document imaging, and web design. He's so happy to be doing something he likes, it will give him more experience and hopefully there is a lot of room for growth in this new company, he learns fast and works fast.

The title has two meanings, one was what I just said about my husband, the other is about actual moving. His job is "up the mountain" as locals say. It's about a 40 minute drive, and there is a big mountain he has to drive up and down every day, which really sucks the gas out of our car! So we're looking for a place to move to up there, it will be nice to be close to his work and also find a new place. I absolutely LOVE moving and LOVE change.  The hardest part is finding a place. I know it will show it's face soon enough.

If I could turn back time

Josiah is almost 7 weeks old. I can't believe how fast time has flown. He's really a good baby, he has a few hours every night (normally about the time I try to go to sleep) where he is really fussy and nothing I do makes him feel better. I know it's his belly, I can tell by the way he moves and fusses. But nothing helps. It kills this momma to know I can't help him when he's hurting.

He's getting so big, and although he's still only a few weeks old I know it wont be long before we're picking out 1st birthday invitations and planning for the day he turns one. It went way too fast with the girls, and I'm sure it will with him too. It's hard to embrace each stage and enjoy it instead of hoping for another stage.  Parents are always anxious for their babies to start rolling and crawling and walking and talking. At some point it turns around and you realize the whole first year of their life has flown by and you wish you could turn back the clocks to make them babies again! Seems like with each baby i get less time to sit on the couch and snuggle, right now I've got a 4 year old who I'm teaching kindergarten to, and a two year old who is VERY active. by active I mean into everything. It seems like every time I sit to snuggle or nurse one of the girls is asking for something, or into something. I'm sure in a year he'll be up causing trouble and I'll be begging him to come sit on mommy's lap. I better enjoy the nights he's in our bed while they last.

Snow days!

I love snow, I love it more in the north where they know how to plow roads, and people have sleds and snow is just a way of life. Down here in the "good old south" they don't know what to do with snow, we get a few inches and everything is shut down for days.

We got about 3 inches yesterday and it managed to stick around through today too! I took the girls outside to play for a while, we had fun making snow angels and throwing "snow balls". We even turned it into a bit of a science lesson, when we first went into the yard there were bunny tracks and dog tracks across the fresh snow. It was fun to talk about the different tracks and follow them, Lexi even used her imagination to tell a story about what the rabbit did. It was cute.

Today in school we learned about volcanoes, we even made one. Lexi was so amused she got all excited and insisted we show daddy as soon as he got home. I love when she gets excited about school. I try to keep it exciting, but not everything gets her attention. I don't think she'd show any interest in learning about a horse tack, although horses might keep her entertained for a little while.

She's been doing way better in school than she used to be. She's really starting to like the reading now, it impresses me how much she can read already, and I love to see her try to read things too.  This chapter in Math has been a challenge, for some reason she was getting really confused about calenders! When she gets confused, or doesn't understand she tries to just be silly, which always makes me upset so we both end up frustrated and yelling. Not a good combo. I've been trying to let her be a little silly, but also get her to realize that if she doesn't understand something she just needs to tell me that instead of crying or getting silly. 

We've considered putting her in public school next year, I can't find any good Christian schools around and she really wants to go to school. I don't think it would hurt for a few years, she is a social butterfly and I think the interaction would be good for her. If we could find a good home school group, or some other social setting it might help her be content being home schooled. I'm not sure what grade we'd put her in, she's doing kindergarten this year, so if we put her in school next year she'd already know everything for Kindergarten, but maturity wise she'd be so far behind for first grade I think.  These are all just thoughts, who knows, maybe we will find a good group to get her involved in without her going to school.

A job!

As of November 10th, it had been two years since my husband was laid off from his job.  A lot has happened in those two years in our family life and in my husband's "career" life. Once he was laid off he tried to find work with another Architecture firm, but was unsuccessful and decided that as long as he was not working he would try to broaden his experience. He started playing around with web design and graphic design. Slowly over the past two years he has grown and figured out a ton (he's good like that, anything he sets his mind to do he can do in very little time, especially if it comes to music or computers). For the whole two years he continued to look for work, while working from home and doing little contract jobs here and there. Unemployment filled in the gaps that his contract work left. In the end of this November we realized his unemployment was gone and his work at home had slowed to almost nothing and he started searching for a job in areas he didn't really want to go. He filled out tons of applications for everything shy of an engineering job. He finally got a job for a company he was excited to work for, although the position was a very low paying entry level job that he didn't really care for he felt like he'd be able to move up quickly. And he was right. After working about 7 days for the company, the owner informed him that he was going to have an interview with the web department. The interview went well and right now we are waiting for the written offer! I'm so excited that not only does he have a job, but that he was able to get into the department he wanted. God is so amazing. I have to admit, when he took the job I was very upset and spent a lot of time crying and yes, asking God what His plans were. There was no way we could survive on what he'd be making especially since the place he works for is about 45 minutes away, up a big mountain which just drains our gas.

God always proves to me that He's faithful and takes care of us, as long as we seek first HIS kingdom He'll take care of the rest. He's even managed to keep Eugene working overtime constantly (seriously, in the past two weeks he's been home on time twice) but it's been the extra we need to help pay the bills!

I wish I could say that I'll never question God again, but unfortunately I am like the Israelites who constantly forget what God has done for them. Lord, please help me remember!!